Phonological Variations Are Compensated at the Lexical Level: Evidence From Auditory Neural Activity

Dealing with phonological variations is important for speech processing. This article addresses whether phonological variations introduced by assimilatory processes are compensated for at the pre-lexical or lexical level, and whether the nature of variation and the phonological context influence this process. To this end, Swedish nasal regressive place assimilation was investigated using the mismatch negativity (MMN) component. In nasal regressive assimilation, the coronal nasal assimilates to the place of articulation of a following segment, most clearly with a velar or labial place of articulation, as in utan mej “without me” > [ʉːtam mɛjː]. In a passive auditory oddball paradigm, 15 Swedish speakers were presented with Swedish phrases with attested and unattested phonological variations and contexts for nasal assimilation. Attested variations – a coronal-to-labial change as in utan “without” > [ʉːtam] – were contrasted with unattested variations – a labial-to-coronal change as in utom “except” > ∗[ʉːtɔn] – in appropriate and inappropriate contexts created by mej “me” [mɛjː] and dej “you” [dɛjː]. Given that the MMN amplitude depends on the degree of variation between two stimuli, the MMN responses were expected to indicate to what extent the distance between variants was tolerated by the perceptual system. Since the MMN response reflects not only low-level acoustic processing but also higher-level linguistic processes, the results were predicted to indicate whether listeners process assimilation at the pre-lexical and lexical levels. The results indicated no significant interactions across variations, suggesting that variations in phonological forms do not incur any cost in lexical retrieval; hence such variation is compensated for at the lexical level. However, since the MMN response reached significance only for a labial-to-coronal change in a labial context and for a coronal-to-labial change in a coronal context, the compensation might have been influenced by the nature of variation and the phonological context. It is therefore concluded that while assimilation is compensated for at the lexical level, there is also some influence from pre-lexical processing. The present results reveal not only signal-based perception of phonological units, but also higher-level lexical processing, and are thus able to reconcile the bottom-up and top-down models of speech processing.

An Autosegmental Account of Melodic Processes in Jordanian Rural Arabic

This study aims at providing an autosegmental account of feature spread in assimilatory situations in Jordanian rural Arabic. I hypothesise that in any assimilatory situation in Jordanian rural Arabic the undergoer assimilates a whole or a portion of the matrix of the trigger. I also hypothesise that assimilation in Jordanian rural Arabic is motivated by violation of the obligatory contour principle on a specific tier or by spread of a feature from a trigger to a compatible undergoer. Data of the study were analysed in the framework of autosegmental phonology with focus on the notion of dominance in assimilation. Findings of the study have revealed that an undergoer assimilates a whole of the matrix of a trigger in the assimilation of /t/ of the detransitivizing prefix /Ɂɪt-/, coronal sonorant assimilation, and inter-dentalization of dentals. However, partial assimilation occurs in the processes of nasal place assimilation, anticipatory labialization, and palatalization of plosives. Findings have revealed that assimilation occurs when the obligatory contour principle is violated on the place tier. Violation is then resolved by deletion of the place node in the leftmost matrix and by right-to-left spread of a feature from rightmost matrix to leftmost matrix. It has been also revealed that spread of a primary or a non-primary feature from a trigger to an undergoer can motivate assimilation to occur in some assimilatory situations in Jordanian rural Arabic.

Dominance in Coronal Nasal Place Assimilation: The Case of Classical Arabic

The aim of this study is to investigate place assimilation processes of coronal nasal in classical Arabic. I hypothesise that coronal nasal behaves differently in different assimilatory situations in classical Arabic. Data of the study were collected from the Holy Quran. It was referred to Quran.com for the pronunciations and translations of the data. Data of the study were analysed from the perspective of Mohanan’s dominance in assimilation model. Findings of the study have revealed that coronal nasal shows different assimilatory behaviours when it occurs in different syllable positions. Coronal nasal onset seems to fail to assimilate a whole or a portion of the matrix of a preceding obstruent or sonorant coda within a phonological word. However, coronal nasal in the coda position shows different phonological behaviours.

Variable assimilation of English word-final /n/: electropalatographic evidence

The phonetic realization of the English word-final alveolar nasal /n/ is known to be highly variable. Previous articulatory work has reported both gradient and categorical nasal place assimilation including considerable between-speaker differences. This work, however, has largely focused on a small subset of place contexts (namely, preceding velar /k, ɡ/) in a limited number of English varieties. The present article uses electropalatography to study the articulatory realization of /n/ in a wider range of phonetic contexts and read texts as produced by three speakers of Canadian English. The results reveal considerable inter- and intra-speaker differences in the rates of assimilation. Consistent with previous work, we observed a high degree of variation, both gradient and categorical, before velars. Substantial rates of assimilation were also observed before labials, where the process is unexpected from the point of view of gestural phonology but predicted by traditional phonological analyses. The variation in the place and stricture of /n/ before coronals was more limited and typically gradient. Finally, some differences were observed across the text conditions, with more assimilation occurring in carrier sentences than in the read passage and, to a more limited extent, in function than in content words.

An Optimality Analysis of the Phonology of French Loanwords as Manifested in the Eastern Part of Algeria

The present study sheds lights on the French loanwords which are integrated in the Algerian Spoken Arabic (ASA), particularly the dialect spoken in the Eastern part. It identifies the phonological processes used to adapt them within an Optimality Theory (OT) framework. A thorough scrutiny of the data indicated that the French loanwords underwent a number of adaptations to fit into the phonological system of the Algerian Arabic. Moreover, the results revealed that this nativization process involves a number of phonological processes, namely unpacking of nasal vowels, nasal place assimilation, vowel deletion, front vowel raising, voicing, devoicing and stopping, in addition to lateral assimilation. The application of optimality framework as to explicate the adaptations of French loanwords has shown that they emanate from a steady conflict between the faithfulness constraints, which condition the preservation of original input forms, and the markedness constraints describing the Algerian Arabic marked phonological system.

Posterior Affricate in Mee and Consonant-Vowel Place Interactions

In this paper we document a previously unknown allophony pattern of the posterior affricate in Mee (Trans New Guinea; Indonesia). The affricate is realized as a laterally released velar stop [gʟ] before front vowels and with uvular closure followed by a fricative release [ɢʁ] before back vowels. Our description is confirmed in an acoustic study that shows differences in the second formant of the preceding vowel and the periodicity of the release for the two allophones. The interaction between the consonant's place and the following vowel challenges previous claims about the absence of major place (or C-Place) assimilation between vowels and consonants. Our OT-Analysis captures this process by postulating two agreement constraints: one requiring agreement between the release and the vowel and another -- between the closure and the release. Although there is no constraint promoting agreement between C closure place and V quality, we show that this effect can be derived from two local constraints.

Gradient assimilation in French cross-word /n/+velar stop sequences

Articulatory studies have revealed cross-linguistic variation in the realization of cross-word nasal+stop sequences. Whereas languages such as Italian and Spanish show largely categorical regressive place assimilation (Kochetov & Colantoni 2011, Celata et al. 2013), English and German alveolar nasals are often characterized by gradient assimilation, modulated by the degree of overlap with the following gesture (Barry 1991, Ellis & Hardcastle 2002, Jaeger & Hoole 2011). The lack of comparable instrumental studies for French may be due to the common assumption that the language lacks nasal place assimilation in general. We investigate here the production of French /n/+/kɡ/ sequences via electropalatography. Four female speakers of European and Quebecois French wearing custom 62-electrode acrylic palates read the sentencesC'est une bonne casquette‘That's a good cap’ andC'est une bonne galette‘That's a good tart/cookie’ alongside comparable control sentences involving /n/+/t d/ sequences. For each sequence, assimilation type was determined both qualitatively via visual inspection of the linguopalatal profiles and quantitatively using two contact indices. None of the /n/-tokens exhibited either categorical assimilation (i.e. [ŋk]) or lack of assimilation (i.e. [n(ə)k]). Rather, an intermediate pattern was attested with the nasal involving overlapped coronal and velar gestures ([nn͡ŋ]) and continuous retraction of the constriction. The degree of overlap varied among speakers, extending up to half of the nasal interval. Overall, these French patterns are strikingly different from the categorical processes reported for other Romance languages, yet similar to the gradient assimilation attested in Germanic languages. We conclude by discussing possible sources of these differences.